


After the War

by Kotanto



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Everyone else is there but it's not a main focus, Hurt/Comfort, I need to finish come again before any bigger projects, I suppose, It is a personal notebook though, It's less about the character and more about how the world and people were affected post-calamity, Linked Universe (Fandom) - Freeform, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Trigger warnings at the beginnings of chapters because it may get a bit dark, Unamed character is technically an OC since they're not canon I suppose, Wild (Linked Universe) Angst, Wild (Linked Universe)-centric, apologies for inconsistencies, first time writing wild, so yeah there'll be a bit of character stuff, this was a midnight sketch with vague outlining so we'll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:53:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27363820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kotanto/pseuds/Kotanto
Summary: "Dear notebook, three years ago today, the world ended."Wild finds a journal from right after the war with Calamity Ganon, giving him insight on the consequences of his defeat.
Relationships: Twilight & Wild (Linked Universe)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	After the War

**Author's Note:**

> A midnight blurb, it's probably messy. I don't write stuff that isn't crack/fluff often and I've never posted any. If there should be any warnings about anything on any chapters, please let me know. Thank you.

_Dear notebook, three years ago today, the world ended._

_There had always been fighting, and looking back, it seems like that’s all I remember. Yet again, I was only five when it all started. Too young to reach back into earlier years and remember what it was like before the war, but old enough to remember what it was like in the middle of it all._

_Father was stationed in the army, and Mother moved what was left of our family to Mabe Village. It was close to Castle Town, I think. I never left the village. I think she hoped to see them again, to finally reunite everyone. Maybe that was why she became a nurse, tending to soldiers in the thick of the fighting. I wish she hadn’t. I’d rather be talking to her than a notebook._

_I think I got off track, but, was there ever a track to begin with? I don’t know why I’m writing. I do know that it’s quiet in the worst way, and loud in all the worst ways too. There’s no government anymore, no laws or rules. It was as if everyone had gone mad, pillaging the markets, ransacking homes, stealing horses. For what? To get away? There wasn’t any getting away. Maybe they didn’t realize it then, but we had lost. Maybe they were still holding on to hope that our Heroes would win and that they would survive, so they did everything they could to survive. But if it’s hope that drives one Hylian to kill another over their travel rations, I don’t want hope._

_I’m running out of ink. It’s been hard to find supplies. What villages weren’t decimated are desolate and empty, no food or weapons there. Foraging hasn’t been so bad, there’s plenty of mushrooms. But the dark of the forest hides monsters, and I’d rather spend a couple of days hungry than spend the rest of my days dead. Regardless, I’m low on ink._

_I’d write with charcoal, but charcoal means a fire, and fire means smoke, which could mean being found. It’s hard to trust anyone now. Everyone’s desperate._

_It’s sunset, time to pick a place and hide. Maybe we’ll survive the night, Notebook. I’d like that very-_

“Hey, cub, what’s that?”

Wild looked up from the journal, instinctually closing it. A habit well learned from all those times the nosy Veteran and snooping Captain had tried to sneak a peak of Mipha’s journal. Though, he was well aware Twilight wouldn’t do something like that. “Just some book I found.” Wild paused for a moment, some sort of saddened smile twitching at the corner of his lips as the Champion’s thumb gently traced the worn, leather corners of the notebook’s cover. “Lots of history, should be interesting.”

If Twilight was curious or noticed that the small smile didn’t reach his eyes, he didn’t say anything, simply adjusting the fur hood with a nod. “Well, don’t stay up too late. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

“Pfft, what are you, my dad? I don’t got no bedtime.”

“No, but you’re my cub.” Twilight chirped amiably as he walked off to his own bedroll, pausing for a moment by the warmth of the dimming campfire before beginning to take off his baldric for the night.

Wild rolled his eyes, his thumb still gently running over the notebook’s worn edges. He sighed softly, gently flipping through the pages. The champion had found it in the cleft of a hillside whilst looking for Koroks, some rocky space too small to be called a cave and too jagged to be called a den. There it had been, wrapped in tattered fabric, stuffed about with age-old dry grass and moss, and securely buried under a heap of stones. Deliberately stored, very out of place in an area so far from any settlement, and curious enough that Wild packed it into the Sheikah Slate and took it with him. 

Now that Wild thought about it, he almost didn’t want to finish. The thing was at least a hundred years old, right? So whoever wrote it was long gone. He’d noticed the writing stopped three-fourths of the way through, but he didn’t read the last page. Honestly, Wild didn’t want to read the last anecdotes of a dead man. He had enough of those. 

But it would be a lie to say that the Hero of the Wilds wasn’t curious. So he gingerly opened the notebook, it’s leather binding cracking softly, pages crinkling gently as he turned the page. 

_I’d like that very much. I have to do my best to survive, for them. They’d want me to. Good night._

  
  


_Dear Notebook, do you mind if I capitalize your name? It makes you feel a little more real, but the good kind of real. The bad kind of real is realizing that this world is real, and this war is real, and that I’m real, and still here. And that they’re not. I want them back._

_Father’s birthday is soon. I’ve been wondering what to do for him. If I wanted to do something special, I’d rally a band of merchants, set out to find Kakariko, then storm the Yiga hideout in the desert. There’s been tales of white-haired folks getting ambushed on the road by deadly soldiers garbed in crimson. It’s worrying. Everyone’s desperate and no one can be trusted, so people don’t talk much nowadays. So you know when everyone knows the stories of the ambushes, it’s a real problem._

_My hair is light, always has been. But it’s not white, just very light blonde. In any case, I may be young, and I may not be my father, but I can still swing a sword. Don’t worry Notebook, I won’t let them get us._

_I don’t know much about the Yiga, no one really does. But monsters don’t attack them, and they serve the Calamity. I stopped at some ruins the other day, I don’t know the name. Nothing much has a name anymore, other than the designations of ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’. There was an older couple there, with a cooking fire. They seemed alright, and I was hungry. We sat for a while, sharing foraged goods and keeping watch._

_I’d been listening to them talk for a while now- I was always told I wasn’t much of a talker, Mother said my siblings and I got it from Father’s side of the family -but then the topic somehow came up. The man wanted to find the Yiga, and join them._

_~~I was scared~~ _ _His partner seemed very concerned about this. He said nowhere was safe and that Ganon had won, he said the only way to survive was to join with the winning side and live. Things got heated, they were shouting. There wasn’t time to stay, they were alerting everything near where we were. I was just focused on running, but I think I heard the man hit his partner. I haven’t seen them since. That’s probably for the better, I took someone’s sword when I ran._

_After that, I found a merchant and traded small game for ink. Bows may not be a commodity now, but I can trap animals._

_I told myself when I started writing that if hope made people do unimaginable things that I didn’t want it. But maybe it’s like a disease, because here I am with a stolen sword, horse-lengths up in a tree. Maybe there’s a difference between hope and desperation. I think hope is being kind and strong when everything is horrible but having faith it will get better, and desperation is telling yourself you’re strong when everything is horrible but convincing yourself it will never improve. Maybe I’m desperate. I think we all are._

_The Calamity mars the horizon, spiraling about the castle like a predator just waiting to catch its prey. Some days I wonder if it’s moving differently, or if it seems bigger than it did before. If it tried again, if the Calamity came back again and started a war I think I would e_

_I didn’t want to finish that sentence. Sorry, Notebook._

_I’m going to bed._

Wild promptly close the book, carefully wrapping it back in it’s binding and placing it in the travel bag. Despite the passage of time separating himself and the writer, he couldn’t help but feel the same as them. It sounded a lot like when he had first ventured out into the world. Monsters at every turn, Yiga around every bend, dangerous nights, and being vaguely aware of a desperation to fix his mistakes.

_Right, and there’s the difference._ Who was he kidding? He wasn’t a victim of war, here. He wasn’t a wary man traveling the lands in fear of war, running and stealing just to survive. He wasn’t any of that because he was the _reason_ anyone had to live like that. _Families dead, children orphaned, villages smited- your fault your fault your fault your fault-_

The champion took a deep and shaky inhale, leaning back onto his bedroll and covering his eyes with his arms. Not tonight. He didn’t feel like thinking about that tonight. Twilight was right, anyways. He wouldn’t be useful tomorrow if he was tired. So Wild closed his eyes, rolled on his side, and hoped that he wouldn’t dream. 

  
  



End file.
